


take a sad song and

by nagia



Series: O Tower Not Ivory [5]
Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: (Despite the sex), Drug Withdrawal, Eventual Happy Ending, Ex-Farmboy Cullen, F/M, Mutual Non-Con, Mutual Non-Consent, Mutual Pining, Past Drug Addiction, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-28
Updated: 2015-12-11
Packaged: 2018-03-09 11:29:10
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 7
Words: 16,420
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3247988
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nagia/pseuds/nagia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"I could," he says to Cullen in an easy, conversational tone, "whip you for it. But you're no stranger to pain, no? It would teach you little, if aught, and the Herald would hate us for it. <i>Her</i> pain would be more instructive, but again, she would only hate us."</p><p>Kinkmeme prompt.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> TRIGGER WARNING: _This story contains mutual non-consent and captivity_. If you feel you may be triggered by this, please enlist a pre-reader or read with caution. Kinkmeme prompt is [here](http://dragonage-kink.livejournal.com/11864.html?thread=46391128#t46391128).

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For those curious — and who want to get really, really specific with horse coloring terms — I envision the Commander's horse as a smoky cream tobiano. (Yes, hence her name.)

She sees him in the training yard some mornings, if she rises early enough. He’s a deep red flash beneath Skyhold’s strong towers, sword like the surface of a river beneath the wisps of weary dawn. It’s never quite bright enough during his practice for his hair to glint like the beacon it was in Haven.

But she doesn’t need a shock of gold amidst the shadow of his armor to know where Cullen is. The Commander of the Inquisition's Forces has his own presence, leaves a strange sense of warmth in his wake, and it's an easy trail to follow.

This morning, at least, Heloise watches him with a cup of coffee in hand and tries to think of how she'll phrase her request. No matter what she says, she's certain she'll seem as if she's just asking to get him all to herself. And yes, that's… a consideration. But, far more importantly than her flirtation with Cullen, Leliana asked that these matters stay confidential, and he's one of the leaders of the Inquisition.

Who better to join her than him?

Hel waits until he's set down the dull practice blade and simple buckler. Sweat darkens his hair, and he darkens it further when he upends a bucket of water over his head, shaking himself like one of those dogs Fereldans are so fond of. He drops the bucket back in the well and turns the crank, clearly going for a second, and she realizes it's time to make her move.

She sets the coffee down on a convenient heap of stone — Maker only knows what the Inquisition's masons will turn it into, or if they plan on making anything out of it; it's been there a month or more — and makes her way to the well.

"Cul — Commander," she says, because she cannot handle making this even a little bit personal. If she even tries it, she'll end up being completely transparent. "May I borrow a moment of your time?"

And Cullen, damn him, says, without hesitation, "Of course. How may I help you, Inquisitor?"

Some part of her stings, because she doesn't want to be _just_ his Inquisitor. "In the War Room yesterday evening, Leliana mentioned a few confidential communications. I'm sure you recall?"

"Yes," he allows. The scarred corner of his mouth twitches up. That half-smile always sends a faint jolt through her, of both warmed attraction and surprise; for some reason, she keeps expecting the scar to keep that side of his mouth immobile. "The ones she wouldn't even entrust to her spies."

"Those very ones. I'm glad to hear you found it as odd as I did."

Cullen pauses a moment, looking just past her left shoulder, before he shifts, as if uncomfortable, and says, "Did you plan to deliver them alone? I… cannot call myself comfortable with the idea. I know you're quite capable of defending yourself, of course, but I would still feel more at ease if someone went with you." Another pause, as he rubs at the back of his neck.

She can't help the way her own mouth curves. "Why, Commander, are you offering to accompany me?"

They both stop at that. Cullen gives her a full smile, though slowly, like he's trying to suppress it. Still, his eyes crinkle at the corners, and he says, surprisingly soft and warm, "I suppose I am, at that."

"Well, excellent," she says. "Because I was going to ask you, anyway."

* * *

The preparations to leave Skyhold, of course, are as always an exercise in tedium, frustration, and trying not to frighten her new Quartermaster. She can see why Threnn hadn't been popular, but at least the woman hadn't scared nearly so easy as the new fellow. Heloise is fairly sure she distressed him today almost as much as she had that time she'd asked about his qualifications.

Apparently, asking to be provisioned for a two-week trip, with only two people, requires him to do an entirely different sort of packing. Well, fine. She and the Commander both need to settle their affairs, so leaving the following morning works just as well.

Leliana, as Seneschal, will of course be left in charge of most matters requiring Hel's attention, but Cullen will have to be a touch more involved in figuring out who makes decisions and duty rosters and supply decisions while they're away. For the rest, they have Josephine and Cassandra. Matters will continue apace, especially after a quick War Council meeting — with Cassandra invited, and notes from Josephine on the attempts at chartering a ship to Antiva — just to make sure everyone is briefed.

If Leliana wears a secretive smile on her plump lips, Heloise attributes it to the way Cullen practically _frets_ about the prospect of leaving his post for a fortnight.

* * *

They leave before dawn, at an hour when Cullen would normally have just begun his constitutional and Heloise would be trying to convince herself to leave her bed and find some coffee. The first traces of light seep through gray clouds, weak as watered wine, and paint the world in shadows and dim highlights.

The horses, when they make their way to the stable, seem sleepy. Dennet gives them a mildly irritated look as his stablehands affix tack, but he doesn't complain at being dragged out of bed before the sun has bothered to shine. Heloise supposes he must be used to it; she and the Inner Circle of Skyhold come and go often enough, and often at ridiculous hours.

Heloise finds herself relieved once they've both mounted up, their saddle bags affixed. A word to Dennet, a last look at Skyhold's empty courtyard and the weak light trying to glint off the windows of fine Orlesian glass, and then she looks to Cullen. No words pass between them, but "let's go" is easy enough to communicate without words, and as one, they urge their mounts forward.

They keep the horses to a walk as they make their way down the Frostbacks, though they find that her bloodbay and his delicate-looking white-and-blond warhorse don't share the same walking pace. Just like her rider, Sweetcream seems driven forward, moving in some sort of amble gait, while Question — unlike Heloise — is more content with a classic walk. It makes conversation difficult, because Cullen keeps having to twist in the saddle if he wants to hear her over the mountain winds and the quiet hoofbeats.

Still, the entire situation is so absurd that she can't quite keep the smile off her lips, and they only spend two days in the Frostbacks. They keep Leliana's messages in his saddlebag, and once they're on more level ground — or at least tolerable hills, not the steep inclines and nosehair-freezing cold of the mountains — the horses keep pace with each other better, and Heloise is actually able to draw Cullen into conversation.

"There was this half-collapsed barn, once," she tells him, "and so there we were, four newly-minted, mostly-unintentional apostates, all squished in together and trying to ignore four irritated sheep and what must have been the _worst_ -smelling goat in all of Thedas."

It gets a smile out of him. "Quite a change. Cassandra, Leliana, and I did our share of sleeping in odd places on our way to the Conclave. Winter comes early in Ferelden, and you take warmth where you can get it."

"I'm not sure I can imagine the Seeker or the Left Hand of the Divine sleeping in a barn," Heloise replies, with just a hint of a tease in her smile.

"But you can imagine me there, I see." Cullen chuckles, then admits, "Actually, neither could I, at first. I'd expected at least Leliana to complain, but she said anywhere that wasn't Bownammar, no matter how cold, was a fine place to rest her head."

Heloise repeats the name in her thoughts a few times, decides it must be dwarven, and says, "Someplace in the Deep Roads?"

"So it would seem. I thought it wiser not to ask." He gives her his crooked half-smile again. "I think our worst was a freeholder's brewhouse. Not nearly so bad as a barn."

She laughs, because how could she not? "I take it you smelled like beer for days?"

"We'd mostly washed the smell out by the time we reached Haven. I can't believe we paid money to sleep there."

* * *

They ride until after sundown, trying to put as much time on the road as possible. Heloise pitches her tent mostly by feeling the ground and partly by firelight. She doesn't mention to Cullen that she's put up and broken down so many tents in quick succession that she's almost sure she can do it in her sleep, no fire necessary.

After all, the fire is nice. Slightly necessary for cooking. Definitely necessary for warmth.

In the end, though, Cullen throws down a ground blanket, a bed roll, and then sets up an oil cloth tarp, presumably to keep rain or dew away. When she raises an eyebrow at the Commander's lack of a tent, he shrugs.

"I'm used to it, and it's peaceful enough," he tells her, quiet. "I used to sleep out in the open during lambing season, before my parents sent me to the Chantry."

Of _course_ his family had owned sheep. Given he has a surname, they probably owned quite a bit more than a flock and pasturage, but still. Heloise has no trouble imagining a younger, ganglier Cullen carrying lambs around on his shoulders. Honestly, it makes perfect sense to her that a man so driven by his faith and desires to help and protect others might have grown up a shepherd.

She says nothing of this. Instead, she smiles, and says, "Well, enjoy your night in the open, then. I'll go check on the horses, and then I think I'm going to get some sweet, merciful sleep."

* * *

She hasn't spent a night alone, outside Haven and Skyhold, in years. Even in the field, she usually shares her tent with either Cassandra or Cole, and before that, she always slept back-to-back with one of the other Ostwick mages.

She shivers for a few moments underneath her blankets, wishing that Cullen had just joined her in the damned tent. But he's dealing with enough as it is, she thinks. It's just the two of them, the horses will be adequate warning, and he was bred for and born in this kind of weather. Let him get some peace where he can.

In the end, though, she drifts off to sleep, lulled by the nighttime sounds of Orlais into dreams of changing light and curling shadow, of being too solid to join her wispy and religious relatives. She dreams of light playing on the canals in Ostwick, outside her childhood home, of her father's placid smile, her mother's cold blue eyes, and her oldest sister's honey-colored skin.

"You'll never be like the rest of us," her oldest sister tells her, eyes serious and the afternoon sun casting her hair into some sort of dark bronze, turning her shades of gold from head to toe.

"I know," Heloise replies, because she does. She always had. The magic had been a surprise, but being bundled off somewhere, not part of her mother's plans — that hadn't been.

And then someone is jerking her up, out of the syrupy, sun-warmed dream. Her bedroll is thin and the ground is cold, and the air is _freezing_. She makes a choked noise as she forces her eyes open, trying to see.

The person grabbing her is not a ruddy-complexioned blond Fereldan, but someone dark of skin and hair, a gray-brown shape amidst the shadow.

And Heloise lashes out, doesn't even think about it. A touch to his shoulder and the cold air turns colder, ice gathering to immobilize. Frost lines her attacker's eyelashes, but she just pushes the frozen man away from her.

After that it's up from her bedroll, shoving her feet into her boots without bothering to lace them. Trusting the tongues to hold her feet in. Even as she stands, she can hear booted footsteps, cursing in at least two languages, and metal bashing against — something.

She pushes aside the tent flap and sees Cullen, wearing only his arming coat and a pair of trousers, with sword and shield out. Three more shadows gather around him, and though none of them are landing blows — that she can tell — they're keeping him on the defensive.

She extends a hand, gathering thoughts of cold again, but a pair of hands grabs her from behind. She struggles in the stranger's grasp, trying to chop behind her, trying to kick out. She must shout, or make noise, because Cullen turns to look her way.

The last thing she sees before the person behind her covers her mouth and nose in a sickly-sweet smelling rag is Cullen starting toward her, and a pair of tanned arms wrapping around his neck from behind.

And then everything goes faintly nauseating, right before it turns black.


	2. Chapter 2

Heloise dreams, as she often does, of the day the Ostwick Circle fell apart. 

There's a warm, solid presence beside her as the heavy footsteps of a dozen Templars ring outside the Elementalists' Solar. She looks up, and is relieved to see that the apprentices and enchanters focusing on fire spells look as they had in life. For these last few moments, they're all healthy, skin aglow with life, cheeks _pink_ with it, and lit by the kindness of summer afternoon sunlight through spun glass. Even the boy, the one Knight-Captain Ghyslain had beheaded in the courtyard before the liveried soldiers had marched in, still looks well.

The boy smiles at her, pale as if bloodless, and his mouth seems to stretch on forever. And even if he's whole now, not a broken body and a bloody stump, she's far, far too familiar with what's coming.

Hel shakes herself awake and almost wishes she hadn't, because now that her consciousness isn't in the Fade, she's actually _aware_ of the headache that threatens to pound her skull asunder. Worse, her stomach roils with nausea.

The metal-banded boot nudging her in the side does not improve her situation or her disposition. Hel rolls over, trying to ignore the nausea, and slaps her hand against the offending foot. She can't seem to gather the concentration to summon an element, not even ice.

"The Herald lives," a voice calls. Hel half-hears the accent, notes that it sounds familiar, and then pushes herself up onto her hands and knees so she can vomit.

Another voice says, from farther away, "I offer our sincerest apologies, Herald. We are unused to taking captives, and may have overestimated your resistance to ether."

And now that she's heard more than three words, Hel recognizes the accent, why it's so familiar: Antivan. They're Antivan.

"Wonderful," Cullen says from her other side, which means he's probably either seen or heard her be wildly, loudly sick. "You're Crows, then, I take it?"

"We are indeed, stranger! I did not know Fereldans were generally so swift to grasp such niceties."

Cullen doesn't reply, but he doesn't have to say a word. Hel can easily imagine his long-suffering look.

There's a scrape and a snap as flint strikes tinder, and then a torch flares. Sparks reach out from it, burning briefly against the black, and it illuminates the face of a Crow with skin the same golden brown as hers. He has pouty lips, she notices, and doesn't appear to be carrying weapons.

When she looks to her right, she sees Cullen. He's on one knee, hands behind his back — bound? — and he's staring up into the darkness and the men surrounding them with an expression of irritation that seems to be shading into impatience and honest anger. He's hooked his mouth down and the torchlight only casts a threatening glitter across his narrowed eyes.

"Herald," the man with the torch says, smooth and easy, "I must request that you make some effort to control your man-at-arms."

Her man-at-arms. If she had the energy to spare, she'd clap her hands to her mouth to cover the bark of laughter welling up. As it is, there's no stopping it, and the Crow arches an eyebrow.

"Is he not your man-at-arms, then, or is he simply not the one in need of control?"

"He's the Commander of the Inquisition's Forces," she says, because it's either laugh more or answer. And, honestly, if they specifically set out to capture the Herald of Andraste — well. Making sure they know who Cullen is can't hurt. Probably can't, anyway.

Only the Crows go completely silent. She doesn't even hear the creak of leather, only the faint popping of the torch's flame. After several moments that seem to drag on with their nails caught deep in her skin, one of the Crows Hel isn't looking at says something in Antivan. She can't translate it, but the tone is unspeakably dry.

"That is… most unexpected, but perhaps fortunate," the Crow with the torch says, slow and cautious, words careful as a cat's steps. He pauses, and then says, faster and more lively, "It is good! We have found you a meet travelling companion."

"Travelling companion," Hel echoes, hollow.

Cullen is the one with the practical question: "Where are you taking us?" And then, a moment later: "You don't intend to hold us hostage?"

The Crow's mouth turns down in exaggerated sorrow. "You will of course be released in time, but alas, your ransom cannot be paid in coin. Gold will not satisfy the Guild."

"What will?" Heloise crawls up and sits back on her heels. She ignores the burn in her legs as she tries to gather her thoughts. What could the Antivan Crows possibly want with the Herald of Andraste?

"Why, keeping those lovely, and yet sadly empty, promises your Ambassador made us in the autumn," the Crow says, and then smiles. He slips into Antivan, and at the liquid flow of words she doesn't understand, the Crows start moving around.

At least one of those incomprehensible commands must have been, 'Gag them,' because somebody from behind her jerks her head back, then forces something made of wood into her mouth. She's vaguely reminded of a horse's wooden bit, but it's rounded, and someone had the foresight to drill holes into it.

When she turns to look at Cullen, she sees a blond shadow, lit in flickering torchlight. His mouth stretches around the same style of gag, but his eyes are narrow from fury.

* * *

The Crows don't set a forced march — they seem to understand that an exhausted mage, dragged from her bed and then drugged with ether, from which she is still hung over, will likely collapse at that pace. But they do push and tug and prod them into walking some distance away from the former campsite. When Hel looks over her shoulder, at the horses they're being forced to leave behind, the Crow at her left shoulder pokes her with the pommel of a dagger.

"Eyes forward, Herald," he tells her, and Hel turns back to stare at the ground ahead of her. She watches her feet, thinks: left, right, left, right.

They go perhaps two miles before Cullen evidently loses patience with this farce. He stops moving, all abrupt, and then bowls his shoulder into the Antivan who tries to force him to keep going.

After that, it's pure chaos. Using magic in combat is already like playing one of those tiered chess games with pieces made of knives, but Hel is still tired and having a hard time focusing after the long walk. Worse, she's gagged, and her hands are bound.

She's lucky they bound her hands in front of her. She can at least point, and the gag will let her control her breathing, even if it won't let her incant.

She starts with chain lightning. It's easier than fire; she and lightning understand one another, and she can predict how it will move. It spins out from one Crow to another, causing them to twitch and moan in pain.

Cullen jabs out with his elbows and even headbutts one of the Crows who gets too close. Heloise does her best to back him up with ice glyphs and Winter's Grasp, even going so far as to encircle him with a wall of ice.

She's not sure it helps him much. It's more than a little crooked, and she's not sure if that's because she's swaying on her feet from exhaustion or if that's the way her head pounds from the ether.

It turns out Hel can't take the time to correct her badly-formed ice wall. One of these Crows is an apostate. He's strong, too; she can feel the way mana gathers around him, even before he shapes it. Something buzzes on her tongue, which only makes her reel even more, and then she looks up, realizes that the mage is the Crow who deigned to speak to them before. The one who'd carried the torch.

And then the sky splits open, lightning racing down in one long, agonizing moment. She watches the sparks dance beneath the stars, watches the purple line reach for her.

There's no running away, no locking in the shriek as it reaches her. It leaps along her limbs, traces lines of light, paths of agony and ecstasy too intense to endure, and her body somehow swims completely out of her grasp. She is not in control of it anymore; instead, it's a puppet on strings of pain.

The scent of blood fills her nose, the taste of it fills her mouth, and then everything goes, once again, black.

* * *

Heloise is getting seriously fucking tired of passing out. This time, she doesn't dream, only floats in a part of the Fade that seems empty. She surfaces from her so-called slumber in a long, slow drift. Like a leisurely rise from the bottom of a bath.

She almost wishes she could sink back down again. The Fade had been warm, and comfortable, and her entire body hadn't hurt. She can't decide now if her heart hurts the most, or if the headache is enough to make even Cullen or Blackwall or Cassandra long for death. She's tempted to see if she can brain herself on the rocky, twiggy earth beneath her.

"— it is not the fault of Antiva, of course, that she is here," the Crow mage says, probably to Cullen, "or that you must be punished. And we cannot permit her to blame our citizens. This leaves me, you must see, in a difficult position."

"Ambassador Montilyet," Cullen replies, voice thick, as if there's something wrong with his mouth, "has tried everything in her power to charter a ship. No trustworthy captain is willing to sail the Eastern seas."

"Yes, yes, we've heard the stories. Angry Tevinter ships sacking and enslaving merchant vessels. Angrier Qunari dreadnoughts using their black powder to destroy any ship that looks southern. And to add insult, pirates! One of them with a very large hat, I am told."

"Once those matters were settled — and the Ambassador has devoted her full attention to them — we planned to sail for Antiva and fulfill our bargain. But you keep this course, and I doubt Inquisitor Trevelyan will cooperate with you."

"That," the Crow mage purrs, "remains to be seen. But now she wakes, and I must begin the unpleasant task of punishing this attempt at escape. I must admit, I never excelled with discipline."

"What?" Heloise asks, and is faintly surprised to realize the Crows took her gag out. Even without it, her tongue feels thick in her mouth, and her voice sounds cracked. To her surprise, the Crow takes a few steps toward her, and then offers a canteen.

She can't reach for it — they've bound her arms behind her back this time and the Crow surprises her once more by simply tilting her head back, hand fisting in her hair. Stubbornly, she keeps her mouth closed, but he presses the tip to her mouth, and at the first few drops of water to her lips, she finds herself opening up for it.

"I cannot let an escape attempt go unpunished, Herald. It might encourage you to try again, and I cannot have that. The Guildmasters would be most displeased."

Water runs down her chin, even as it pours into and overflows her mouth, but it's so sweet on her aching throat. She closes her eyes, tries to ignore the vague humiliation of being forced to accept sustenance from the hand of a man holding her captive.

"I could," the Crow says to Cullen in an easy, conversational tone, "whip you for it. But you're no stranger to pain, no? It would teach you little, if aught, and the Herald would hate us for it. _Her_ pain would be more instructive, but again, she would only hate us."

Hel can't even tell him that she already does, because she's too busy trying to swallow rather than choke. 

After a moment, the Crow takes the canteen away. Not trying to follow it takes every ounce of will she has. 

"Help him stand." This time, the Crow apostate's voice is cold, hard. Unflinching. "And unlace his breeches. What pleasure this manner of instruction bring him, the Herald's resistance will sour."


	3. Chapter 3

The Crow drags her over to Cullen, pushing her by her bound arms. She tries to plant her feet in the dirt, but she's outweighed and overmatched. Her attempts to resist only lead to her stumbling, for which the Crow curses her and tightens his grip on her arms. She hisses at the sting of his fingers against her skin.

By the time they've reached Cullen, she's nearly tripped four different times, been hauled upright, and she's fairly certain there are purple marks all over her arms. Her skin certainly stings enough to have bruised. Honestly, though, she's feeling tenderized all over.

"Kneel," the Crow says, in that same, unflinching, uncaring voice. Like he isn't getting off on this, like it's just a means of punishing her and Cullen both.

Heloise shoots him a disgusted look over her shoulder. She can't seem to stop herself. How dare he use sex as a — no. How dare he ask her to rape another person as some twisted disincentive for escape?

The Crow shakes her, and she could swear she feels her brain rattle around inside her skull. "Kneel, Herald. Down to both knees."

She gets down to one knee, but that doesn't please the Crow.

"Both knees, Herald, and quickly, unless your pride is worth scarring him a little?" 

All right, both knees. She winces as she hits the dirt fully. The ground is cold underneath her, the grass springy and crisp with dew that's tried to freeze. It soaks into her trousers, and she shifts, uncomfortable.

There's the soft sound of cloth moving as one of the other Crows unlaces Cullen's breeches.

And then she's on the ground, on her knees, a Crow's hand in her hair, pulling her head to an unnatural angle as another of the Crows frees Cullen's cock. He's limp, of course, easily enough to flop slightly at the brusque, perfunctory motions. As protests go, it's a weak one, but they're neither of them in a position to be forceful.

Maker's breath, how is she supposed to go about this?

She hesitates. Of course she hesitates.

"Come, Herald, surely you have played at such games before? You are a lovely woman, and I hear the Circle can be quite tedious." Another shake, even as he pushes her closer to Cullen. "Help the poor man out; he quite clearly has no idea what to do with a woman on her knees. Go on, help him get his blood flowing somewhere useful."

She's not left with many choices, after that comment. She closes her eyes, draws in a breath, and leans forward. It's surprisingly, shamefully easy, to let the head of Cullen's cock slide past her lips.

Andraste's grace, the skin of him is soft. Blood-hot. He's faintly salty against her tongue, though his skin is smooth and slippery there, faintly earthy, too, and he's a weight in her. Slowly, as she closes her lips around him, his soft shaft begins to harden, firming and plumping up in her mouth.

Above her, he draws in a ragged breath.

She moves her head just slightly, bobbing as she gives a gentle, experimental suck. It pulls another shaky breath from Cullen, and she can't help looking up through the shutter of her eyelashes.

He closed his eyes, too, and he's sucked his lower lip between his teeth.

Hel adds a bit more force to the suction, then relaxes and begins to slide her lips along his shaft. To her shame, some part of her catalogues his responses, the way his hips twitch as she takes him in deeper, the way he bites off a shocked noise when she does something that pleases him. As if she's doing this voluntarily, as if either of them stands any chance of truly enjoying it. As if this will ever happen again.

The Crow's hand tightens in her hair, clenching until she winces from the pain. She can guess what he wants, though. 

Hel closes her eyes and wishes she had her hands to help balance. As it is, she has to move awkwardly, but she takes Cullen's cock deeper within. The way her lips and the corners of her mouth stretch to accommodate him is painful, and her throat aches.

Cullen's startled breath very nearly makes her jump. She catches herself, but she can't help looking up again.

He's thrown his head back, and at some point, his mouth fell open.

If only — 

She closes her eyes again. Tries to shut out the rest of world. If matters were different. If not for the hand in her hair, if not for the threats.

The clenched hand in her hair turns into a caress. And the Crow, as if sensing that she's managed to send her mind to some other place, begins to speak again. Tears down the fragile wall she just built up.

"Do have a heart, Commander. You saw that lightningstrike. The poor woman's just screamed herself hoarse; I'm not sure how much more her poor throat can take."

Is that why she hurt so badly when she woke? Why she was so greedy for the cool sting of water? It hardly matters. 

Warm fingers brush beneath her hair, against the back of her neck, and she makes a noise in protest. The vibration must travel, because Cullen's entire body jerks.

Laughter from the Crow.

"I do not ask you to rush yourself, Commander, only perhaps to take a little pity. But just a very little; I admit to some curiosity about your Inquisitor's endurance."

Rustling, as the Crow moves, and then her entire body relaxes as he steps away from her, releasing her hair. It's like having her strings cut.

If her hands weren't bound — if they were anywhere but here — she'd be running her palms along the backs of Cullen's thighs, or stroking a finger over his hips. She'd feel the subtle tremors that hinted at his impending release. Naturally, her hands are behind her back, still, so she could only see them, if indeed they were strong enough.

But she's closed her eyes tightly, so her only warning is Cullen's strangled noise, deeper than she'd expected, a swallowed half-word, and then he's spilling, hot and salty in her mouth. His breathing is ragged, harsh in her ears.

She knows what the apostate will expect. She swallows.

And then looks down, trying to contain the burst of self-hatred. But at least the hatred means she doesn't need to remind herself that whatever her feelings for Cullen —

At least the hatred means —

At least she has it. At least they have that pocket of resistance, if not their dignity.


	4. Chapter 4

The minute the Crows have finished "helping" Cullen re-lace his trousers, the Crow mage has them all start moving again.

They gag her, even though she has no words left, and the wooden ball in her mouth feels even more invasive now than it did before. She discovers that not only does the gag let her control her breathing, if she breathes just _right_ , the air passing through its holes creates a really obnoxious whistling noise.

She whistles for most of a mile, until the Crow mage cuffs her on the back of the head. As if Cullen has some sense for violence done to her person — or as if he'd been listening to the whistling, perhaps just because it was a sign of defiance — Cullen looks over at her.

He doesn't meet her eyes. Or maybe she can't meet his. Maybe they just can't look at each other.

They only go another few miles, perhaps five, until they reach an abandoned farmhouse. The Crows push her and Cullen into a corner of the main room. 

"Try and rest a while," the Crow advises. "We will not stop for long, and we have far to travel."

Of course, he then immediately does something to guarantee that Cullen won't sleep. He sets a wall of repulsion glyphs — which is sensible, if frustrating — and continues to lay down a spirit barrier. The snap and pop of the mage's mana, the warped weft of the Veil, both make her teeth buzz. They cause an itch on the back of her tongue, too. 

She can only imagine what it feels like for Cullen. Does it worsen his craving for lyrium? Or does it remind him of something he encountered during the fall of the Ferelden Circle?

He glares at the barrier, gagged and bleary-eyed.

One of the Crows unties them, as if guessing that no one's about to sleep with their hands tied behind their backs. Another even removes the gags, and mutters something in Antivan, too low for her to catch, even if she spoke the language. His eyes are downcast, though, and his tone is vaguely sympathetic, or perhaps long-suffering.

She settles down as far away from Cullen as she can. It's less because she needs space than because she expects Cullen will need it. She closes her eye and tries to imagine anyplace but this.

But the cold of the farmhouse settles onto her skin, sinks into her blood and her bones. She starts to shake, and though she rubs her hands together and along her arms, there's no stopping it. She wonders, briefly, if she's shaking from more than just cold, but that's a vain thought.

What does she have to be traumatized over? What the Crow demanded of her, she'd have done willingly, under other circumstances.

No, the shakes are just her being unused to this southern climate. Orlais is generally warmer than Ferelden, but this near to the Frostbacks, there's hardly a difference.

Cullen never removes his gaze from the barrier. It casts flickers of purple over him, bathes him in a mix of spirit-light and shadow, and his expression is so hooded, so inward, that the sense of warmth and weight he carries with him is gone.

Still, he must somehow notice the shudders that roll down her spine, because he says, "It may be better for you over here. If you can st—" A pause, a half breath of a sigh, and then he says in a lame finish, "If you can."

Heloise can't help the choked, horrible laugh. She always thought that if she could laugh, she could live, but it _hurts_. She silences it as quickly as she can. The real pain it causes her and her utter disgust with herself makes that easier.

Once she has her throat back under her control, she asks, "Can you?"

His voice is absent, as if he's only half-listening, when he asks, "Can I what?"

"Stand being near me."

That draws his attention, enough for his eyes to flick to her, though he never turns his body away from the barrier. "Stand — what? What are you asking me?"

She can't say more than that. She knows better than to try. Still, the blank incomprehension and even defensiveness in his tone draws his name from her mouth, voice still ragged from screaming she doesn't remember.

"Oh," he says, softly. Like she's given him some sort of revelation. And, again, more fervently, half a whisper, half a prayer, " _Oh._ "

She doesn't say anything more. It hurts too much, in her throat and deeper. She aches down to her bones, from exhaustion, from the lightning, from what she's been made to do.

"Inquisitor," he says, and stops, because she flinches.

It's reflex. At the word, at _that_ word, in his surprisingly gentle voice, her entire body twitches in automatic revulsion.

"Don't," she gasps. "If we were ever any kind of friends, don't. Not that name. Not while —"

"No," he says, after a moment of silence in which he'd stared out at the barrier again. He picks up again with, "I understand. May I call you by name, then?"

"I'd prefer it," she says, and even though he isn't looking at her, he gives her a solemn nod.

"Heloise. I do not… blame you, for what's passed. I hope you can forgive me my own role in it."

She laughs again, and again, it's a terrible sound. It tears through her. That he doesn't blame her fills her chest with warmth, but the rest of it rips her heart into small pieces. She thought she was beyond this sort of pain, but apparently this she knows too well, returns to too easily.

"What role? You didn't want that, any of it. That was the _point_."

Silence sits between them. The barrier buzzes, separating him from the present as much as it separates her from escape.

At length, he says, "Nor did you. Winter comes early and lingers long in the south. If you can, come closer. We'll keep warm."

She goes. Briefly, uncertain of her welcome, she rests her palm against his shoulder. For the first time, he turns to look at her.

And she can meet his eyes. It's quick, so quick, and it _hurts_. There is some kind of old pain in his eyes, robbing them of warmth, but he's not so far away anymore.

So she sits down, leans against him. As the minutes drag on, sliding lazily by, she realizes that the sense of weight, of heat, has begun to return to him. Until, slowly but surely, Cullen Rutherford is _present_ , has pulled himself away from whatever nightmare he was reliving — perhaps by force — and is real.

He's not whole, and he's not hers, but at least he's with her.

"Thank you," she says, soft.

"Your fidgeting is a good distraction from the barrier," he says.

She wants to protest that she doesn't fidget, but, well, it's probably true. She tends to shift around uncomfortably when she's anxious, and she hasn't been this anxious since the Inquisition had locked her in a cell.

"Glad I could be of use," she tells him instead.

It gets him to crack a smile, and the jagged edges of the stone in her chest start to heat up and hew together at the sight of it.

Maker, he's so close she could kiss him. Some part of her, the worst part of her, almost wants to. And yet that's the last thing she should want, the last thing she should even be thinking of. That gap is necessary, is vital.

Even should he care for her the way she does him, does she truly want to taint those feelings by associating them with _this_?

She looks away from him, back at the barrier, and then closes her eyes. She says, quiet but firm, "You should sleep, too. I know you must be exhausted."

The Fade reaches out for her before she hears his reply. She's dimly aware of the sound of his voice, a beacon of bright sound amidst the darkness of the Veil slipping over her eyes, and then the world is something else, something strange.

When she wakes,she's still cradled against his shoulder. Cullen has fallen asleep, too, if his slow, deep breaths and the way he's rested his stubbled chin against the top of her head are any indication. Sometime in the night, someone draped his furred-and-feathered cloak over the both of them.

The ruff tickles the back of her neck, but she makes no move to scratch it. Instead, she closes her eyes again and lets sleep claim her again. Before it does, she feels Cullen shift in his slumber, feels a warm hand splay along her back.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for this chapter. It was just feels and cuddling, because I think we needed some feels. If you're curious at all about the playlist I use to write this fic, it's over [here](http://8tracks.com/yesthatnagia/take-a-sad-song-precious-things#smart_id=dj:6254371)
> 
> Also my captcha was "no spoon" which seemed HIHGLY APPROPRIATE given the cuddling


	5. Chapter 5

Heloise wakes shortly after sun-up, only to realize that for once, she isn't cold and stiff. The light that drifts through the cracks in the farmhold is pale gold, paints the grayed wooden walls in warmer shades.

And Cullen has wrapped both his arms protectively around her. The cloak someone spread over them has drifted down, resting near her waist, but she knows why she wasn't cold. Cullen is a furnace.

As she looks up at him, she notices sweat beading on his temples, a fine sheen on his upper lip.

The lyrium withdrawal, she realizes.

She's just debating whether to wake him or no — whether that would help him or only humiliate him — when the farmhouse door bangs open and the lead Crow steps inside. He's whistling a cheerful tune she's never heard before.

Between the slammed wood and the whistle, Cullen twitches and is awake almost within instants. He tightens his grip on Hel for a moment, before he lets go of her and, visibly tensed for a fight, puts himself between her and the barrier.

A few hours of sleep and whatever the withdrawal is doing to him seem to have reawakened his defiance.

"Good morning," the Crow says, every bit as cheerful as he'd been the previous night. "The two of you looked so cosy, it was a shame to disturb you. But we must be moving along, and quickly."

"Where are you taking us?" Heloise asks, even though she'd do desperate things for water and a hairbrush. And a convenient bush.

"Why, Antiva, my lovely Herald. Eventually."

She doesn't let herself flinch at the title.

"I'll need to bring this barrier down so we can be on our way. But I think a reminder of why escape attempts are a bad idea would not go amiss."

Cullen says, blunt and hostile, "You made your point last night."

"Well, as glad as I am to hear that, I did not reach this position by being incautious." The Crow taps his finger against his lower lip, and then gives them a sunny smile. How a man so monstrous and insane can have such a beatific smile, Heloise doesn't know. But she wants to kill him for it, a little; she wants to kill him for a lot of reasons. "Ah! I know. What about a good morning kiss?"

"Is this some jest at our expense?' Cullen snaps. "Bring down the barrier."

The Crow's smile widens. "I've found that much of the world is a grand jest, at everyone's expense. But I was quite serious about my request."

Cullen glares out the barrier at him. The Crow stares back, his mouth stretched into a perfectly pleasant smile. The Crow's eyes even crinkle with good humor.

"Oh, for the Maker's sake," Heloise says, because she wants out of the damned barrier far more than she wants to watch a contest of wills between a stubborn ex-Templar and an insane assassin. 

She crosses over to Cullen's side, stretches onto her toes, and kisses his cheek. His skin is still too warm, and his stubble is rough against her lip. She ignores both of these facts. "Good morning, Cullen," she says, and then turns to look at the Crow.

But the Crow's smile has not changed. He says, calm as can be, "That was a nice try, Herald, but I meant a proper kiss."

When she was young, her father had told her that her glibness did her no credit, and that her swiftness to speak would get her into trouble someday. 'Someday' might well be this very morn, because Hel's mouth is open on an exasperated, "Why? What _is_ your fascination with —" before she rethinks herself.

She claps her mouth closed, but the Crow's eyes have narrowed. His gaze flicks to encompass the barrier.

"I would like very much to be on the road in the next five minutes," the apostate says. "But I am prepared to wait. I am prepared to wait quite a long time, in the interests of ensuring my point has been taken."

Cullen tenses again, but nothing happens. The Crow apostate just stands on the other side of the barrier as if he's waiting for something, and Cullen glares at him.

Just as Heloise is looking away, Cullen seems to come to some sort of decision. He takes her chin in his grasp, tilting her head up, and then slants his mouth against hers. His lips are soft, almost gentle, in contrast to the faint burr of his stubble against her skin. She feels little sign of the scar above his mouth, only the hot press of his lips, the way he controls the kiss not only with his mouth but with his hands, one keeping her chin tilted in the direction he wants, the other tangling in her hair.

It's easy, so easy, to take his lower lip between her teeth, then to let her mouth fall open for him. And he presses in closer to her, grips her tighter in his hands. His tongue slides between her parted lips, quick and gentle, as if he's unsure.

But she doesn't try to pull away. Just lets him hold her where he wants her. Lets him control the kiss, pushing his way inside her until her heart pounds in her chest.

When they finally separate, she uses years of musical and elocution training to keep her breathing steady. 

Cullen doesn't seem entirely unmoved, either; he exhales a ragged breath before demanding, in a tone that sounds as if his throat has been scraped raw, "There. Does that satisfy, or would you have a better _show_?"

"Oh no," the Crow says. "That is certainly sufficient."

He waves his hand, and the barrier vanishes. And then he turns around and walks away, as if sure that whatever just passed between them will keep them from attacking him from behind.

He's right. Heloise is too startled, her heartbeat too loud in her ears, to raise her fingers and freeze the apostate where he stands.

* * *

The march after that actually is grueling. It's not worse than the journey to Skyhold. And nothing could be worse than the hike after Haven, when she'd been desperately and deliriously trying to catch up to the survivors. Still: this is unpleasant enough.

Hel spends the march making her gag whistle. It clearly annoys most of the Crows to no end and gives her something that isn't her feet to focus on. There's a way out of this; there has to be. She's the Inquisitor, Cullen is the commander of her forces, and they neither of them got where they are by being average. 

She just needs to think. And stop feeling nauseated every other breath.

Much as it galls her, she considers cooperating until they're in some town or even a city. Getting loose here, on plains, drugged and exhausted, without their horses and no way to fortify — 

Even assuming none of the Crows survived, they'd still be fine prey for bandits. 

Hel only manages to march for two hours at the speed they want of her. Between the continuing ether hangover, the ache in every muscle from being electrocuted, and an exhaustion whose source she can't pinpoint, she can't keep pace with trained assassins and a soldier in Cullen's condition. 

She staggers to her knees and bends over, trying to force air into lungs that don't seem to want it. Her entire body is a haze of pain, and the world swims before her eyes.

No, she tells herself. You're not going to show this kind of weakness in front of a bunch of assassins and your own general. 

"It would appear the magebane is still in your system," the lead Crow says, a falsely-sweet note of pity in his voice. "I had hoped rest and water would flush enough of the toxin out that your mana pool would restore itself, and you would be fit to travel. Ah, well, now I know not to administer through the back of the neck."

One of the other assassins adds something derisive-sounding in Antivan, prompting unkind laughter from a few of his fellows.

"Keep that up, Fernan, and I'll ship you to Calabria and Guildmaster Lorenzo." The lead Crow's voice is poisonous, and the other Crows fall silent.

Another derisive mutter, and they see the lead Crow's eyes dart toward his balky subordinate.

He says, "Very well, Fernan. You and Illyrio can help our poor Herald stand, and make sure she stays on her feet until we reach the wagon. Herald, do try not to overtax my men. It is truly not so far from here."

"And where does this wagon go?" The question comes from Cullen. His eyes have narrowed as he stares at the lead Crow.

"Why, to Val Royeaux, of course."

Val Royeaux, Hel thinks, even as a Crow helps her to straighten up. He rubs a hand down her back in a motion probably designed to help clear her lungs — not that there's anything to clear from them; they just don't want to work. Her thoughts turn numb, even as the connections light up in her mind, like lightning in the fragmented dark. 

Val Royeaux, and its harbor.

But there are plenty of towns on the way there. Towns there's no real point in avoiding, especially not if the wagon is covered.

Cullen comes to the same conclusion. She can see it, in the way he meets her eyes, for once hopeful, rather than painful. But the hope lasts only an instant, and then he smothers whatever he's feeling under the mask of a professional.

Templars are good at that. Swallowing their orders, no matter how distasteful they find them, and ignoring their own opinions. Knight-Captain Ghyslain never needed to, but she's seen enough outwardly friendly, decent men turn to stone at whippings, and those same decent, pious men and women did nothing during the Abrogation of part of the Primalist college.

Cullen's expression turns flat and dispassionate. "You're not going to get us past the harbor master. You won't even get us into the city; the gates are shut and manned thanks to the unrest."

"There are ways, as I'm sure you know," the Crow says. "Come now. If we can keep a decent pace, we'll reach the wagon by noon."

And then the march starts again. Hel moves her feet and legs, and lets the world lapse, locking herself away in her head, listing out her options.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sweet surfer-chomping Leviathan, I'm sorry this took so long. I could give all sorts of reasons, but the truth is, I'm trying to psych myself up for the very dark place this fic is about to go, and uh. That's not easy. Even for me. Hopefully I'll get myself psyched up to go where I'm sure y'all want me to go, and I'll have the next piece out sooner.

Heloise marches, one foot plodding after another. Eventually, as her eyes drift half closed, the tall grasses of the plains become the muted gray stone of the Carracks, and the cold, clear sunlight turns syrupy and strange. It's golden and white and flickers like it's playing over water outside leaded glass windows.

A waking dream, of course. Hel knows roughly where she is, knows that her tired feet carry her toward a wagon and, in the distance, Val Royeaux. She has not truly returned to Ostwick. But she is exhausted enough, unaware enough, _unmoored_ enough, that her mind has stepped partly into the Fade. The blasted magebane didn't take that from her, at least, dubious a blessing as it may well be.

After a while, as her legs begin to burn from the strain and exhaustion — and the Crows who follow her keep hauling her to her feet, keep pushing her forward — the imagined halls of the Carracks begin to throng with people. Mages and apprentices, scurrying about their business. Watchful Templars. She's not actually asleep, so the people in the halls look misty, vague. They ripple like the sunshine on the canals. No few of them lack faces, which would make them intensely horrifying if she weren't so tired.

She continues on without real interest in her surroundings, real or false, and only dimly realises that this dream world is silent, and casts its own blanket of silence over the real world, as well. If the Crows curse her slow progress, she hears nothing of it. She hears nothing at all, not even footsteps or the slapping of water against stone.

Hel steps outside the Carracks, onto the flat, floating plaza they call the Campo. Knight-Captain Ghyslain stands atop the stage; she recognizes him from the red-gold-brown glints of his hair. Beside him stands a smaller figure, perhaps a boy, though it's more difficult to tell, thanks to the apprentice robes he wears.

The Knight-Captain's sword shines in the light, silver as the canals look in sleepy moonlight.

No, she thinks, and she tries to open her mouth to shape the word. The wood of the gag cuts into the fullness of her lips, and the leather thong it's strung on, holding it into her mouth, cuts into the corners.

Knight-Captain Ghyslain, the Campo, the boy — they all vanish, replaced instead by a low hill, a few scraggly pine trees, misshapen by the wind, and a wagon. Movement flashes from the corner of her eye, and she turns her head to see another pair of Crows, leading horses up the hill.

"This will carry us into Val Royeaux," the Crow leader says. He flourishes an arm at the wagon, as if waiting for Hel or Cullen to burst into applause.

Neither of them indulge him. Hel doesn't even breathe loudly through her gag, unwilling to give him so small a satisfaction as a whistle. Cullen evidently feels the same way, but he hasn't made a habit of taxing anybody's patience. Not since —

Not after last night.

Hel shies away from remembering the rest, because the only other words that come to mind are, 'his punishment,' and, ten thousand times worse, 'what she did to him.'

As they make their way to the squat, covered wagon, one of the Crows shoves her forward. She can't even windmill her arms for balance, so she stumbles to her knees. She feels the grass squelch under her weight. She can practically feel it smear green on the legs of her trousers, but surely it can't make them any worse than kneeling last night did.

"One thing, Inquisitor," the Crow mage says. It's the first time he's called her anything but Herald. She wonders at the change, but cannot ask, and he moves right along, slippery and awful: "I am willing to take out your gags — pretty though your mouths look, stretched so — if you promise to be wise."

She stares uncomprehending at him. Cullen makes a ragged noise in his throat, rasping and wrong, that the gag converts to a series of wheezy sounds.

The Crow mage actually gives them both a disappointed look, as though Cullen has failed him somehow. "That is precisely what I was talking about," he says, dry and yet distinctly unimpressed. "I need the pair of you to be quiet. No fusses, no shouting for help. It would end messily, you must see."

But his gaze darts to Hel, and she sees the glint of hunger in his eyes. She doesn't need him to say that if either of them shouts or willingly draws any attention, he will naturally punish them both again. She can see it all in the tense, eager line of his shoulders, in the way he looks at her.

Hel nods. With their gags out, she and Cullen will at least be able to talk to each other. Plan something, when they have their strength back.

The Crow dashes that hope by bringing out a small vial. Its contents are, at least, not blue but a murky brown. Still, she does not like the look of it. It looks like poison, to her. But surely they wouldn't poison her or the Commander of the Inquisition's Forces. They would have to be truly mad to try that.

"Do not fear, Inquisitor. It is but a poppy's milk tincture," the apostate says. He smiles his horrible, blissful smile and adds, "It is an intoxicant, I admit, when it does not simply send one into deep slumber. The Commander must drink it."

She doesn't have to turn her head to see Cullen's entire body tense for a fight. But the Crow leader ignores him; instead he pulls out a small canteen and pours just a few drops of the tincture within. He shakes the canteen a few times, and then crosses over to where Cullen stands.

In a smooth motion, one of the Crows taps the backs of his knees. Not quite a kick, not hard enough to dislocate a kneecap or break the joint, but clearly hard enough to force Cullen to kneel. He looks up at the Crow, and Hel can see the fury simmering. If he had been a mage, she has no doubt several of their captors would be on fire from the force of his anger.

"You drink it, or she does," the Crow leader says.

Is that truly an option? Hel begins to sway where she kneels, struggling against the Crows holding her up. She breathes through her gag, whistling for attention.

The Crow leader looks over to her, but then he turns his gaze back on Cullen.

Cullen closes his eyes, perhaps in resignation, and the Crow leader gives a delighted laugh. His hands reach out and he unties the gag. The look on Cullen's face after he spits it out is pure hatred.

And yet he drinks from the canteen. His mouth twists after every swallow, but he evidently drinks it all down. He shakes his head when he finishes, a single quick jerk, as if he already needs to clear his thoughts, and the Crow leader laughs.

The Crows help him back to his feet. He moves toward the wagon with a slight limp, though he keeps his head high. 

A pair of Crows draw away the screens that close the wagon. Cullen climbs in without need of help, though one of the Crows winces — in sympathy? She scarcely dares believe so — as they shut the screens again.

They force her to wait. The minutes crawl by, wounding and sharp, digging in like hooks when they arrive and tugging away at her as they stretch, then go. But at last, the Crows help her to her feet and part the screens again, and once she's in the so-called safety of the wagon, she unties her gag.

Hel wants to collapse on the wooden floor, but Cullen has beaten her to it. 

To be honest, he's slumped himself against the wagon's side, using its low wall as support. She's seen him slouch before, of course. He may be serious, but he's never been perfect. Still, she's never seen him slouch like this: his head lolling, his body forcibly relaxed, his eyes unseeing. He looks almost dead, though after a moment she sees his chest rise and fall as he breathes.

He looks absent. Not retreated inward, like he was last night, but wholly gone from himself.

Hel forces herself to crawl the scant distance across the wagon. She sits down heavily beside Cullen, leaning her own back against the wagon.

"I'm sorry," she says. Her voice is limp and the words useless, but maybe he's aware enough yet to hear her. "I _will_ see us through this, and out of here." _And I'll see that bastard dead for what he's made of us_ , she doesn't add aloud.

Cullen doesn't reply. He doesn't even turn his head to look at her.

The wagon lurches, and then begins to roll, its wheels rattling as the horses drag it.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **  
> **  
>  _Super huge mega warning for non-consensual penetrative sex. It's dubious consent due to intoxication on one side and hella hella non-consensual on the other, it is unskippable, and it is described without flinching or glossing. If you feel you may be triggered by this, wait and skip to the next chapter or find a pre-reader._  
>   
> 
> This is the end of this arc. Recovery arc starts next week, hopefully. We'll see how it goes.

Two days slide by with little more to mark them than the occasional stop of the wagon, each one an opportunity to stretch her legs and find limited privacy, and a few simple meals. Cullen spends most of that time in a daze, staring blankly ahead, jaw clenched but otherwise barely responsive to the outside world, save exhausted, unsteady curses for the Crows. Heloise, on the other hand, stays wide awake and close to him, never certain if his torpor will turn to some sort of illness.

Sometimes he lifts his ungloved hand and grips a few strands of her hair, rubbing them in between his fingers. He wears an intense look of concentration as he does this, and Hel wonders if he's still entirely within the grip of the Fade. What could prompt him to do it?

But on the third morning, the Crow leader doesn't make Cullen drink more of the milk of the poppy, to what she suspects is the sardonic amusement of his men. He simply lets them out. Cullen's movements are shaky, and Hel keeps an eye on him. She notes a few of the Crows doing the same, but they seem less worried he's going to attack them and more worried he'll collapse. Still, if he stumbles, he catches himself without need of aid. And as the morning wears on, he seems more and more himself.

He's the first one to hear the stream. She sees his entire body stiffen, and then his head turns toward the sound. Hel would have been none too familiar with the noise before camping all over the Hinterlands and the Emerald Graves, but now she recognizes it.

Water moving over stone. Going somewhere. Quick, and almost quiet beneath the sound of forest life.

The Crow leader smiles. Heloise has spent too much time in his company to think that sweet, blithe expression is anything but cruel. He's thinking up something awful.

"I assume the pair of you would like a chance to bathe?" The apostate asks.

Something in Hel's stomach tightens, then coils into a knot. When she looks over to Cullen, he's staring at the Crow leader with a wary expression.

"No catch," the apostate tells them, voice coppery and bright, and Hel thinks: _Not yet, at least_.

* * *

The first downside to this bathing idea: there is no feasible way to bathe in privacy. She doubts she would be given it even if it were possible under the circumstances. But she knows how to accept such. The Circle had no room for modesty, either; at least the Crows are unlikely to beat her for shielding what skin she can. They gave her soap and cloth, as well, and she cannot believe how thankful she is for such a small blessing. She almost doesn't care about the price she surely must pay for it later.

Heloise doesn't even pause before she unlaces her boots, then shucks her shirt and breeches.

The second downside is the season. Even in high summer, the stream would likely be quite cold. It's shaded, and deep, and moves far too quickly for the stones in its bed to hold much heat. So as it is, in this early spring, it's like stepping naked into iceflow. She hisses as the water chills her toes and ankles, and hisses more as it rises to her knees, her thighs. By the time it reaches her waist, she's shivering.

Cullen, being taller, must of necessity venture deeper. He goes past her, and Hel gets an eyeful of his broad shoulders, the muscles of his back. Also his arse. She hasn't really been in a position to notice it before, but the water's so cold that she barely registers it before she's scrubbing at her skin with a swatch of sack cloth.

She must peel away dirt three layers deep. By the time she finishes with the cloth, she's gone through a quarter of the soap and her skin is red from the vigor of her attempts to clean herself.

So she starts in on her hair. Ordinarily, she'd be horrified at the thought of using a lye soap on her head, but she's so greasy she's not sure how much damage it will really do. She makes sure to lather it in her hands and dilute some of the lather with water, at least.

Cullen is faster than she is. She's still working soap into her hair when he passes by her again. He pauses for a moment — with his back to her, closer to the shore than she is — and then evidently decides to wait. Hel isn't sure if it's kind or cruel of him.

Her teeth are chattering by the time she wades her way back to dry land, but Cullen is straight-backed and calm. She can see random blotches of pink on his back and arms, as though his body has responded to the cold by flushing unevenly, but otherwise he seems perfectly hale. Hel would curse his Fereldan hardiness to cold, but it's honestly too good to see him healthy and well and clear-headed. For now, she can begrudge him nothing.

He chuckles when she draws next to him. It's a low, bitter, ragged sound that makes her heart ache. "How long will this last, do you think?"

The answer, of course, is 'not long.' But what she says is, "Shall we ask them?"

It draws another ragged laugh out of Cullen, as it was meant to. He looks over at her, and his expression is startlingly gentle. His eyes are bright in the dappling of forest sunlight, but though his shoulders and neck are tense, he holds his jaw more softly.

"You're being sentimental about something."

"Perhaps I'm remembering the hike through the Frostbacks."

"Only a Fereldan would prefer a snowy trek across the bloody mouth of the world to a decent forest stroll." There's no bite to her voice; at this point, she's just reveling in the fact that he's clear-headed enough to take a little ribbing.

When he laughs this time, it's a more throaty, rumbling sound, and Hel finds herself wondering where exactly he learned to fake flirtatious chuckling. He steps in closer to her, bumping her shoulder with his arm hard enough to affect her walk, and drops his voice to say, "If you can get me a knife, I can have three of them dead the next time they —"

Hel cuts him off with a sunny, flirtatious laugh of her own. Her parents have always held that, unlike the rest of their children, the sound of Hel's amusement is perhaps the most unfortunate sounding thing in the world, so she throws in an ungraceful snort. She smacks Cullen's arm, as if to jokingly punish him for some dreadful Fereldan pun or come-on.

"You're terrible," she says, and then, no quieter but in a blatant come hither tone, "I'll consider it."

Relief flashes across Cullen's face, there and gone again in a quicksilver flash.

When they reach the wagon, the Crows pour drops of their awful brown tincture into a flask of water again. Oddly enough, it's not the Crow leader who mixes the tincture, but one of the subordinates. Hel watches, and if she had been frozen before, now she seethes and simmers with rage at the sight of Cullen drinking it. At the sight of his mouth twisting as he throws his head back to take long pulls. He shakes his head when he finishes, as if that will stave away whatever haze the tincture swamps him in.

"You have used lye on your hair," the lead Crow remarks to her as Cullen climbs into the wagon.

She keeps her voice cool when she replies, "It was the only soap I had."

At this, the Crow leader nods, and then he dismisses her utterly to go digging in a saddlebag. What galls her most is that he's _right_ to. With Cullen in the wagon and soon to be held in the Fade's grasp, what can she hope to accomplish? Where could she go, without leaving him behind? And she will not leave him behind; it would take no great philosopher or student of human nature to see that.

At length, the Crow returns with a small, flat flask of some golden liquid.

"It would not do for you to destroy your appearance, my dear Herald. I must deliver you in good health and as lovely as ever." He crooks a smirk, and offers the flask. "Brush this in. It should heal some of the damage you've done yourself."

"And it smells nice, too. Giving you an excuse to let us go as long without bathing again?" Hel takes the flask regardless. Let him think her cooperative or vain or both. Why should she waste energy fighting with him about this, when she needs to find some way to get out of this madman's clutches?

He laughs at her. "Oh no! I actually rather enjoyed the sight. You are both lovely specimens, and I must say being clean shows you to your best advantage." He pauses, and the crooked smirk turns smarmy. "Although you are quite lovely sleep mussed and with your Commander's prick in your mouth."

There is no stopping, no hiding the burn of shame at that. She wishes she _weren't_ ashamed, but her conscience is not clear enough to let her think herself a victim. She can't even come up with a reply, and he laughs at her silence.

Climbing into the wagon — away from him — is practically a mercy. She wearily settles in by Cullen. As the minutes slide by, charted out only by the slow drip of water soaking into the back of her shirt and the cart's bouncing gait forward, Cullen's drugged fascination with her hair returns. When she works the damnable oil onto her scalp and begins to comb it through, Cullen seems greatly intrigued by the process.

Eventually, she hands the comb to Cullen and lets him drag it down. His strokes are heavy, uncoordinated, and at times she has to bite back the urge to swear and take the comb back. At least three of his jerky movements threaten to yank her hair from her skull; either he's too used to being ruthless with his own grooming, or he's not aware enough of himself to be of much help. Still, she lets him keep going.

The scent of lavender fills her nose, and every so often, she hears the soft inhale as he takes in the smell, too.

* * *

The mummer's price comes when they stop for the evening. 

The evening meal, at least, is uneventful. Cullen pokes at the bread and cheese the Crows offer him, clearly aware that he should be doing something with it, but just as clearly unsure if he's actually interested in eating. He takes a long time to finish it off, and is shaky when he drinks a canteen of water and climbs back into the wagon. His gaze has remained almost entirely blank.

Before Hel can follow him, the Crow leader stands. He jerks his chin at her and then moves away from the gathering of Crows. Rather than Cullen, she follows the Crow.

The first thing out of his mouth is: "Let neither of us pretend the other is a fool."

"Done," she says, and forces her tone to stay light and easy.

"You are trying to plan again." He holds a palm up. "This is natural; you have adjusted to your situation. But I cannot have it. So we must… change things, yes?"

He knows. Hel stares at him, and the fury that had simmered at the sight of Cullen swallowing the poppy tincture returns, burning low in her gut and rising up and commingling with the sudden icy inrush of fear to make her lightheaded. The gall of this hateful little man. The risk she'd been preparing to take. And now — 

"You do not like us to damage your Commander. If you do not do as I ask, I will have little choice but to flog him." He curves his mouth in a smile like a short bow, and says, "I am going to have to insist you take him to bed. That, I think, should leave the both of you off balance enough that the planning will cease?"

She doesn't even have to think before replying, "Then flog him."

The Crow's eyes widen for a moment. "So bloodthirsty, so quickly?"

He cannot possibly understand the extent of her thirst for blood. Specifically his blood. Hel gives him her flattest stare and makes no reply, and he seems to take her meaning.

With a heavy sigh, he unbuckles a pouch at his belt, and withdraws a vial. It's small and flat, much like the one containing hair oil, but its contents are blue. Worse yet, it glows in the gloom of the forest around him, lambent, and she can _smell_ it, metal and magic, through the glass.

"What do you think he would do right now, with his sorry state, if I uncorked this and offered it to him?"

Her breath freezes in her throat. When did he learn of Cullen's struggle with lyrium? How did he learn of it? Is there a traitor within Skyhold?

"I have no wish to take such a drastic measure, Herald. But do consider what might happen to him in the grip of the lyrium." That perfectly pleasant, perfectly reasonable smile flashes again, white in his dark face, and he adds, "I promised to deliver _you_ unmarked. Him? I could toss him to my men this instant, and the Guild would not care."

She clenches her left hand into a fist. The Anchor wakes for a moment, but she stares straight ahead, at the Crow. "I wouldn't help you, no matter what your Guild said or what they showed me. Hurt him further, and I let Antiva burn."

Once again, he laughs at her. He throws his head back with the force of it, exposing his throat, and Hel is seized by the perfectly rational desire to drive her fist into that column of flesh.

"If I believed even a single word of that, we would indeed be at an impasse! But unfortunately for you — and for your Commander — I do not. You would hate me and my Guild. You might even do us some damage. But you would not let an entire country be overrun with demons for the sake of one man. You are not so spiteful."

She wishes she were. She wishes this Crow did not have such a thorough measure of her.

"I have given you your choice," he says, and his voice is quiet, serious. "You have an hour."

The Crow heads away from her. The other Crows have all turned to watch their exchange, and she sees a few of the elves' eyes glow in the darkness. The realization that they've had an audience all along brings heat to her cheeks, and she clenches her fists again. Hate tangles in her stomach, twining up to tighten her lungs, as she realizes that this entire situation galls her, chokes her.

She wants the Crows dead. She wants their leader dead. She wants to rage at Cullen for allowing this, as if either of them has had any choice in this matter. As if he hasn't been as much or more a victim as she.

Heloise climbs into the wagon to try and speak to him. He's collapsed onto one of the blankets, sprawled out as if he hasn't a care in the world. That may even be so; his eyes are heavy-lidded and his pupils blown.

She kneels next to him. When he turns his attention her way, she realizes that she hasn't even the beginning of an idea how to discuss this with him.

Finally, she asks, "Cullen?"

He blinks at her a few times. After a moment, he asks, "Heloise? What's wrong?" His words slur together slightly, but he sounds mostly sober. Tired, and as if his mouth is benumbed, but sober.

"They want me to make a choice for you. They want me to choose whether you're… whether you're assaulted or whether you're given lyrium and then assaulted."

He stares blearily at her.

"Cullen," she says. "Please don't leave me to choose this for you."

His bleary stare turns bemused. "They know about…?"

"They do. I don't know how. I swear, I've said nothing to them of it."

Cullen nods. "I trust you," he says. And then he says, "I don't… I don't want… I trust you." He's still slurring his words, still sleepy-eyed and far, far too relaxed for the situation they're in.

Hel is tempted to shake him, or slap him. Anything to rouse him from this near stupor, but his mouth lolls half open as he reclines again. The tension in his shoulders, the subtle lines that mar his face, have eased.

She climbs back down from the wagon and feels sick to her stomach at the thought of what will soon happen. The other Crows, the lesser ones, all stare at her. One or two even wear expressions of pity, and one looks disquieted. But surely hardened assassins know no such feelings.

* * *

He wants to break them both. She can see that. That damnable Crow wants some combination of mistrust, humiliation, anger, and guilt to drive a wedge between them. Make sure they can't cooperate to get free. And he wants, Hel thinks as she watches his men turn to stare sullenly, or make wry comments in Antivan, to assert authority.

But understanding the ruthless arithmetic behind his decisions doesn't make watching him unhook the wagon cover any easier. Some part of her mind does arithmetic of its own, realizing that it's safer for Cullen to stay in the wagon by this point.

And he's more likely to be comfortable there, where he's drifted for hours, dreaming. He'll care less about any possible audience.

So Hel hoists herself into the wagon once again. She stops, hesitating, and the Crow leader reaches up with an oil lantern. Of course he does. Still, she reaches down and takes it, adjusting the wick until the light brightens, and then sets it in a far corner of the wagon.

Cullen turns his head toward her. He tilts his head as he looks at her. He doesn't even seem surprised when she kneels in front of him.

She says his name. Once, twice, again, until she has his attention. His brow knits and his lips part, as if he's about to ask her something.

So she leans in and kisses him. His lips are as soft as they were a few mornings ago, cool and dry. When she presses one hand against his cheek, she finds that the stubble on his cheeks and jaw have lengthened into pale scruff.

He doesn't respond at first, just lets her kiss him. And then he relaxes more into the furred blanket he's been lying on, tipping his head back and opening his mouth for her. It's far too easy to tilt her head a little more, to sink down to the blanket with him until she has a knee between his legs. 

His pleased grunt buzzes from his mouth to hers, and then she presses her tongue between his parted lips.

He buries a hand in her hair, at the nape of her neck. When she takes his lower lip between her teeth, Cullen makes a noise low in his throat.

She breaks the kiss — he makes a noise of disappointment — and leans back. Hel has to bat Cullen's hands away when he reaches for her, though his eyes widen as she begins to unbutton her shirt. He reaches for her again after she flings the shirt away, and this time, she lets him.

His fingers trace her collarbones first, before he skims the very tips of them over her breasts. After a moment, his hand slides lower, until he's resting his thumb just below them, his hand splayed almost possessively over her stomach. She'd be more confused if his gaze wasn't so obviously focused on her breasts. He even bites his lower lip as he stares.

Cullen lifts his other hand for a moment, but then he settles it on her hip. As if he's not sure he's allowed to touch.

The guilt threatens to swamp her. He trusts her, he said. He'll never trust her again, and he damned well shouldn't.

She straddles him regardless, and lifts the hand on her stomach until he's loosely cupping one of her breasts. His eyes widen even more, but he needs no encouragement to cup her more firmly, to squeeze.

Hel very nearly yelps. Surely he meant to be gentle — she can't believe otherwise — but if so, he's forgotten his own strength. The pain is a hot, sharp lance through the flesh of her. From the way the burn goes on even after he releases her to rub his thumb in circles around her nipple, she knows there will be bruises.

Still, she squares her shoulders and cups the back of his head. Even after that sharp jolt of pain, she finds it far too easy to draw his head down. 

Rather than do as she expected and press his mouth to her nipple, he lays a sloppy, open-mouthed kiss against her breast and then tries to pull her in closer to him. His fingers dig into the meat of her bicep as he tries to position them, and dig harder when they nearly lose balance. His touch leaves a kind of hot ache in the shape of his hand, but then he mouths kisses along her throat. 

When she arches her spine and throws her head back, chasing more of the feeling of his hot mouth against her, his teeth and stubble scraping, he kisses her harder. He sucks at her throat hard enough to leave marks. Maker's breath, he sucks so hard she yelps and tries to pull away, only to be caught by a grip at the nape of her neck. His hands are firm, and she wonders if that, too, will stain.

"So beautiful," Cullen slurs against her skin.

She needs to distract him from this. Feeling sick, she shifts in his lap until she's poised just over the hard bulge in his trousers. It's second nature to grind down, then to make sure she traps his prick when she stays seated astride him. His breath is a ragged gasp, and he closes his hands around her hips.

They move together. She rocks against him, ashamed at how _good_ the friction feels, even through her trousers. The shame tightens in her stomach, mingling with the tension of arousal, until she can't tell one from the other, even as she feels the heat of him beneath her.

His grip on her hips tightens, until she can see red marks peeking out from beneath his fingers. She doesn't care; she keeps rocking, at once loving and hating the sensation of her body colliding with his. Soon, his thumbs are sliding into the waistband of her breeches, and she can see by the lantern light that his eyes are still blown.

"Take… take them off," he pants in her ear. His words all jumble together, like his tongue is stumbling over itself, but she understands him.

Shimmying out of her trousers without leaving his lap is an awkward prospect, but she manages. She's not sure where they land, but it's not like it matters. Cullen takes a moment before his gaze drops, as if he's having trouble keeping up with what happens around him.

He slides his hands down her hips, over her thighs. For once his touch is gentle, despite the roughness of his calluses. He presses his thumb against the knob of her hipbone, then pulls it away. Press, release. Press, release.

"Yes," she tells him, amused despite herself. She shouldn't laugh at him. He never asked for this. He's not even thinking clearly. "That's my hipbone."

His fingers slide lower again, past dark curls, until he's parting her folds.

Far too much of her thinks: oh, Maker, yes, though the rest of her wants to pull away. She freezes, caught between knowing she can't choose this for him, that she should stop this — and knowing that she dare not stop.

His thumb finds his her clit. She shifts at the feel of his warm, callused fingertip there. The movement rocks her against his hand, and she can't stop the gasp that escapes her mouth.

But Cullen has at least some memory of what he's about. He's clumsy, slow, but he knows to tease his thumb in slow circles around her. Pressing in, never quite hard enough to be painful but too hard to give her something as simple as pleasure. Long, lingering swipes that gradually move closer in, until she's slick and struggling to breathe from want.

He pushes two fingers within her. He does that slowly, too, smoothly, even though she clenches out of instinct. It's an invasion, one that leaves her tense, and she can't forget about it even after he returns his attention to her clit.

Hel has just begun to believe that this, at least, will not hurt, when his thumbnail catches on her skin. She opens her mouth to say something, but then she feels the scratch, and she does jerk this time. Which only hurts more, as his fingers are still within her, and the sudden stretch is painful.

To his credit, he doesn't wait to ask, in a drug-blurred voice, "Did I hurt you?"

Yes, she wants to snarl. Did he not feel that? Did he not notice what his own hand was doing? But instead she says, "It's fine. I'm fine." Though she wants to roll away from him, end this farce with both their dignities intact, she opens her mouth and says, "Don't stop."

He doesn't. Maker have mercy on them both, but he doesn't.

The pad of his thumb touches her again, much more lightly. And then he begins those damnable sweeping circles, the ones that tease her, that warm her low and sure. He draws her closer and closer to the edge even as he draws closer and closer to her clit. It leaves her so damnably full and buzzing, tensing against the edge of pleasure. He curves and straightens his fingers in her, and she rocks against his hand, hips moving in short, helpless jerks that she can't stop.

The pleasure and the tension begin to stack, one and one and one on top of the other. Like books in a heaping pile, building and tightening low in her stomach, until they become almost unbearable. She cannot sustain these feelings commingled, cannot survive them.

She's grateful when she finally breaks, Cullen's fingers crooked inside her and his hand hot on her skin. She can only gasp into his shoulder, her breath as out of control as the way her body clenches and relaxes. She almost collapses, and the only thing stopping her is Cullen's hand suddenly on her back. His other hand is still between them, partly within her, and surely slick with the leavings of her own enjoyment.

When Hel looks up, his eyes are dark with the mix of drugs and desire, and his chest heaves.

"Cullen?" She asks.

He draws his lower lip down, biting into it, and then tips his head down toward her. It's easy to lean back and let him kiss her, open-mouthed and messy. 

He says, "Heloise." And his voice is ragged with want, deep as his cry just a few nights ago. "Heloise," he begs again, and when she squirms in his lap, he withdraws his hand from her.

Close your eyes, she tells herself. Close your eyes, and pretend this is what you both want.

Hel reaches down and begins to untie the laces of his breeches. He leans back enough to allow it, though he jumps, as if startled, when she takes him in hand. She stops, her hand stilling as the hairs on the back of her neck rise.

"I need — Cullen, I need to hear that you want this."

"I want this," he tells her, hoarse and raw, without a moment of hesitation. "Heloise, I want this."

What follows should be the simple matter of guiding him within her. And yes, part of it is simple — lining the blunt head up, forcing herself to sink down upon his prick. That last goes slowly, though. He's a perfectly respectable length — their Maker be praised — but he's _thick_ , and she is unused to such girth. The stretch starts out as a shrieking pain, as if her body is crying out _too much, too much_. And yet, as she eases him into her, it turns to a sort of satisfaction, and then it turns easy, comfortable, _good_. She is stretched around him, full of him; they are more than enmeshed, they are matched.

By the time she's fully seated, she's clinging to Cullen's neck and taking in deep breaths. From the way pleasure warms her and then pain sparks through like fire, like the Anchor, her body isn't sure if it's being punished or rewarded. And as she begins a slow, melodic roll of her hips, pain and pleasure blur into something many-faceted and complicated and yet, at the heart, simple.

Cullen's hand tangles in her hair, gripping the back of her head, while his other drops to her waist.

"Maker's breath," he murmurs, even as he drops his head to press his mouth against her shoulder. "We fit so well."

As if made for each other, she almost agrees. But what she says is, "Cullen. Cullen. Move."

He seems confused a moment, before grinding his hips up to meet her. They take a few moments to settle into a rhythm, but it's not the one either of them needs. She's too tentative, and he's too unbalanced to find any purchase with her in his lap.

So Hel widens the splay of her legs and leans back. Cullen seems to sense her meaning, because soon he's trying to gentle her fall back to the floorboards of the wagon. He's swiftly between her parted thighs, pressing against and inside her. She smiles to encourage him, hooking one leg around his waist, reaching up to touch his cheek.

Cullen responds by digging his fingers into her hip and thigh.

"Move," she tells him again.

He does. He moves in deep, slow thrusts that seem to pierce right to the core of her. She's so far beyond feelings as simple as good or bad, now, that she isn't sure if he's hurting her or if it's just right. Only sensation and response are left to her, and she indulges them both, turning this travesty into the push and pull she would have wanted, if it were real.

Hel knots her fingers in his hair, tugging gently to draw him down to her. He leans down after the long moments it takes him to realize what she wants, never missing a beat in the pace he's set. Hel kisses him, trailing her mouth from his stubbled cheek to his soft lips, and clenches her inner walls around him.

His rhythm doesn't cease, but she hears his pleasure pull a noise from his throat. She can feel its vibration passing between them, and it's so good, so easy to open her mouth and let him deepen the kiss. He's sloppy with it, his wet mouth opening too wide, his tongue probing and slick, and his hips never still, driving into her.

And then his thrusts speed up, without turning shallower. He's pounding into her harder, faster, so deep that the knife edge of pleasure and pain she's been balanced upon turns on her, sharp and hot. It feels closer to being stabbed. His gasps turn to faint whines, low in his throat, while her own sighs turn to tiny noises of hurt.

She breaks the kiss and pants out, "Cullen, Cullen, please." She's not sure if she's begging him to slow down his chase of his own pleasure or if she's begging him to stop, to wake up, to recall that neither of them wants this.

But he doesn't slow, and soon it becomes almost unbearable. She's too full, too stretched, and it burns red and hot, sudden spikes of agony at each of his thrusts. That, too, becomes a rhythm: there are moments of mere pain followed by a torment she's not sure she can endure, followed by the easier, if unpleasant, feeling of being half-emptied.

And then his thrusts slow again. It lasts long enough to let the fire halfway abate, but then he's speeding up again. He seems to draw right up on the edge of release and then back away again, slowing his pace.

Maker's breath, how long can this go on for? Is this some symptom of the poppy's milk tincture, or of lyrium withdrawal?

Hel lets her hands slide to Cullen's waist, then up his back, beneath his tunic. She presses her fingers to the knobs of his spine, tries to lose herself enough in her hands that she can ignore the relentless tide of his body against and within hers.

Slow, deep thrusts, then a quick, jackrabbiting hammering at her, then back to slow — 

She digs her fingers into his back, lets her nails bite deep, and then drags them. Hard and slow as the passage of hours. She feels warm wetness well up to follow her nails as she drags them, and Cullen gasps. His hips still, whole body tensing, even as he lets out a low cry.

Under other circumstances — if he had been gentler — she might have felt the pulse of his climax. But her whole lower body throbs, and his own reactions are lost within it.

She is relieved beyond words when Cullen finally sighs. It's over. It must be over. She squirms and writhes, hissing, "Out, I need you out," through her teeth at him. She hisses more when he withdraws from her, but then sighs as her body finally relaxes. The tension goes out of her, leaving her limp as a cut bowstring.

It all returns when Cullen gathers her in his arms. She can't help stiffening, even as he gently pulls her to the pile of furs they foolishly didn't use. She hears his movements pause, and the soft rustle of cloth, before he drapes himself atop her. He tucks her essentially under one arm, like a child with a stuffed nug, and presses a kiss to the back of her neck.

His exertions appear to have exhausted him; she hears his heavy, even breathing within moments. She, however, lies within the circle of his arms and feels something hot and wet pulse out of her, too much and too thick to be his seed. Blood, she thinks, considering how badly everything hurt. It still stings within her, too immediate for her to close her eyes and escape.

In his carelessness, he has torn her inside. Even though she knows it isn't his fault — she seduced a man she knew to be intoxicated — some part of her seethes. The rest of her is a bundle of shame and hatred. This is a punishment she richly deserves, for her crime against him.

There are soft footsteps, the very faintest sound of someone or something landing in the wagon, and then the lantern gutters out. Or someone turns down its wick until it snuffs. More whispers of footsteps, and then the sounds of the screens being put back up.

She stiffens further, trying to wake her mana without waking the Anchor, as the Crow approaches her.

But then someone lifts her hand and stuffs a dagger into it.

"I will rouse him enough to give him more of the tincture," a voice, much more strongly accented than the Crow leader's, tells her. He pauses, and then, as delicately as a cat stepping into an unfamiliar room, he offers, "I can clean him up. He need not know the whole of what happened here."

"He'll think you did it."

"And should he not? We are the architects of this night."

She lets her head loll against the furs. As soundly as she's hurt him tonight, any chance at making things easier on him in what must come next — how can she regret that? How can she hesitate? 

"Do as you will. Let him have another reason to hate you. It might even be best for him."

She hears cloth rustling and a quiet whistle of astonishment. "Mother of Mercy, he is as thick in blood as if he tried to murder you, Herald."

Her voice is strangely hoarse in her throat when she says, "He wasn't thinking clearly. He wasn't in control of himself."

But the Crow says nothing further. He is back at her side within moments. She sees the faint glint of eyes in the darkness, and realizes he must be one of the elves. He presses a small vial of something glowing and blue into her hands.

"We did not all agree with Federico," he says. "I trust you will need no more than these trifles?" Even as he asks this, he slips a blanket over the pair of them.

"No more," Heloise agrees, and realizes that she could be saying that about any number of things.

No more, she thinks again, as she finally drifts off to sleep, naked in Cullen's arms, body protesting against this night's treatment. She reaches out for the Fade, and does not care if Ostwick's bright shadow falls over her dreams again. She is gladder than she has ever been when the Fade finally opens its arms to her, and she sinks into its blissful blackness.

* * *

hey jude don't make it bad  
just take a sad song  
and make it better  
remember to let her into your heart  
then you can start  
to make it better  
— The Beatles, "Hey Jude"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I've decided to split the recovery arc off into its own story. See you at noon EST with the next installment.


End file.
